If I were a man, I would win the object of my love in spite of destiny herself, and therefore have I little faith in timid hearts that shrink from such impediments as inevitably obstruct that course that never does run smooth.
The man who loves a woman as a true woman deserves to be loved, will never give her a second place in his regard before the world. We have nothing to be ashamed of in our honest loves and therein lies a rigid test. It is true that in our day it makes a great difference to us whether certain persons attract the potent attention of fashion's votaries or not. A plain face, or an awkward gait, or an eccentric manner, can turn the tide of a whole human life; for such superficial irregularities have proved many a time to be a stumbling block to our most willing affections, when we could have loved and cherished a soul were it not for these accidents of the flesh: an uncouth demeanor, an unpolished exterior, an old fashioned accent, or something just as trifling which our modern propriety ridicules. It has come to this, I know, in our times, that the world expects an explanation or an apology of some kind, when people of social standing allow themselves to be wooed and won by persons whose lives are not regulated according to the popular taste. Men marry beauty and talent and accomplishments as though any of these things were solid enough to maintain their prospective fortunes and women betroth themselves to men and manners, and are satisfied that if they have nothing to eat, they will always have something to look at. The great majority of rejected men in the higher walks of civilization, as the word is used in our day, are whole-souled fellows, whose clothes have the misfortune to fit awry, whose shoes are clumsy, and whose ways are natural. It omens ill for the human race that in spite of its much vaunted development and progress, there should be such a mental poverty and moral weakness prevailing among the representative classes. It is nothing else than a serious reflection upon this self-glorifying century of ours, to note how subservient our people are to harmful, social regulation, and how indifferent they have become to those moral restrictions that encroach upon the liberty of these questionable conventionalities.
These, however, are not the people that are ever associated with the mention of the nobler and grander phases of human life. We pity them for sacrificing their better selves to so thankless and perishable a cause, and we would redeem them by gentle persuasion if they were willing, but there are aspects of the situation upon which our eager solicitude may not trespass, and having reached this limit we must turn away with a shrug of the shoulders and leave them to their own hazardous guidance.
Ernest Dalton was not one of these, although he happened to be markedly favored by persons of every distinction and rank. He was received with a smile and a pleasant greeting wherever he went. He had won the goodwill of social, political and scientific magnates, and yet it could not be said of him, as of many another such luminary, that he paid too dear for his whistle. He had not purchased his popularity with servile adulation and at a sacrifice of his own personal dignity. The smiles of the world are too transient and uncertain to repay one for such a compromising tribute, especially when we can provoke them in a worthier and more respectful manner. I doubt, however, if ever a laurel-crown were worn more comfortably than Ernest Dalton could have worn his.
And yet he was a very plain man, who spoke with an ordinary accent, who wore unfashionable clothes, who never boasted of pedigree, but who earned a distinct individuality about with him though he never intruded it upon others. He was affable and agreeable without that exaggeration of either quality which spends itself in profuse laudation of social comets. He was a favorite but not a parasite, and could lay his hand sincerely upon the clumsy waistcoat that sheltered his sterling heart and say to that world of artifice and cunning. Non serviam.
Surely if it is possible to extract any sweetness from a world-given fame or distinction, it is when that world has thrust it on us, and not when we have begged and striven and pined for it, and bribed hidden forces to unite in supporting and advocating our cause. There is no flavor to the cup of fortune when we have used our fellow-mortals as stepping-stones to the rank or wealth which brings us within reach of it.
It may seem that I had an exaggerated view of Mr. Dalton's standing in society, but it was the popular view that every one fostered, and could not, therefore, be magnified by my personal appreciation of his true worth. I had always admired him, even before I began to think of him in any particular way, the thought that he had been one of the few kind patrons of my neglected youth, seemed to bring him yet nearer to my deepest regard as I grew older.
But he had changed with my life. He was not now what he had been in my younger days. No one would have thought, to watch us together or listen to our aimless conversation, that we had ever been more than ordinary acquaintances. This vexed me. I wanted him to show me more attention on account of our long-standing relationship. I thought he could have presumed upon our early friendship to call me by name before strangers, or in some way insinuate that I was more to him than all that motley crowd of fashionable humanity that flitted and buzzed around us.
Ah! there are many such petty needs as this gnawing at our poor, dissatisfied hearts. Things are going wrong on all sides of us, and the beautiful harmonious mechanism of life that enthusiasts sing about, seems nothing but a helpless repetition of jarring discords for some of us. The circumstances of our varied experience do not fit into the places allotted them, and we find ourselves often in false and painful positions, with no alternative but to endure patiently or peevishly what men call the inevitable.
If only we did not wish so ardently for those things that may not be! Why does not the human heart control itself with some philosophy that can despoil forbidden fruit of all its tempting qualities? Why need we covet probabilities that may never be nearer to realization than they are now?